BERNIE SANDERS AND ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ WENT TO WAR WITH PARTISANSHIP IN KANSAS
July 21 2018, 10:04 a.m.
Excerpts:
Though the first of two rallies held Friday was ostensibly in support of James Thompson, a candidate for Kansass 4th Congressional District, the gestalt of the days remarks was something bigger than any one race. The speeches particularly Sanderss announced a unifying theme that felt too coherent to have been thrown together for a House primary or two. Individually, the remarks were compelling. Together, they comprised an unabashed declaration of post-partisan movement building a rebuke to those in power who fetishize every identity-based division in order to diffuse the largest coalition in the country: the working class.
Where electoral battles have long been viewed as a struggle over red states and blue states an effort to dominate the map like advancing armies, on Friday, that partisan dichotomy was evoked only to be dismissed in favor of a narrative that highlights the universal struggles shared by residents in locales as diverse as Kansas and Vermont and the Bronx. Yes: Trump is a racist. Critiques of his immigration policy and calls for criminal justice reform received enthusiastic applause. And yes: Kansas went red in 2016. But Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Thompson each emphasized that the enemy was not a color not red or blue, nor black or white. It was the 1 percent, people like the three families who, as Sanders pointed out, have more wealth than the bottom half of Americans.
Where there are working-class people, exhorted Ocasio-Cortez, there is hope for the progressive movement. Later, Thompson echoed that sentiment. Its not about Republicans or Democrats, he said, but about working people coming together.
https://theintercept.com/2018/07/21/bernie-sanders-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-kansas-james-thompson-brent-welder/
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)Abortion, guns and racism
comradebillyboy
(10,119 posts)Well if one completely ignores how American government works it isn't. This is just a variant of the 'both sides' nonsense.
DavidDvorkin
(19,405 posts)It's naive and politically foolish.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)For the first time in my adult life, I find myself on the same side as George Will and Bill Krystal. It's no longer about D vs R, but about who is a patriot and who isn't.
SunSeeker
(51,368 posts)Or was it the fact that Welder worked in Bermie's campaign?
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)SunSeeker
(51,368 posts)Fiendish Thingy
(15,367 posts)Now, let's see, which candidates tend to support the interests of the Bottom, and which tend to support the Top?
Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)Couldn't he work his "magic" in a flippable district instead of a democratically held district?
Seems Bernie loves undermining Democrats....
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)Thanks for the thread Donkees.
Power 2 the People
(2,437 posts)It's time for a change.
[link:|]
SunSeeker
(51,368 posts)This kind of rhetoric only reinforces the GOP false narrative that the Dems are about party not people. The Democratic Party IS ABOUT EMPOWERING WORKING PEOPLE.
And Bernie's former campaign operative, Welder, is not the only progressive Democrat running. Suggesting only Welder is for the workly class is really offensive. I think Sharice Davids is the better candidate. https://www.shariceforcongress.com/about